A V5 Hybrid Seabin—Canada’s first—has been installed at the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron (RNSYS) in Halifax thanks to the sponsorship of Butterfield Support Services (Halifax) Limited, the local subsidiary of Bermuda-based Butterfield Group, a Global Pilot Partner of the Seabin Project.
The Seabin is a floating rubbish bin designed to be placed at marinas, docks, yacht clubs and commercial ports as a part solution to the current global littering problem. Water is syphoned in from the surface and passes through a catch bag inside the Seabin. The water is pumped back into the marina leaving litter and debris trapped in the catch bag to be disposed of properly.
The Seabin Project began in 2015 as a crowd-funded initiative, and secured corporate sponsorship from Global Pilot Partners, including Butterfield, in 2017. Under the Pilot program, pre-production Seabin technology was deployed in marinas in Bermuda (Hamilton), the US (San Diego), Finland (Helsinki), Montenegro, Spain (Palma Mallorca) and France (La Grande Motte). Using feedback from the pilot locations, the Seabin Project refined the design of the Seabin, which is now in production. The first marinas to receive production models are those being selected by Global Pilot Partners.
Under Butterfield’s sponsorship, production Seabins have thus far been placed in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, and now Halifax. Butterfield aims to install Seabins at marinas in all of its locations to help showcase the innovative technology and encourage its adoption by marinas and yacht clubs worldwide.
Betsy Drummond, Butterfield’s Head of Operations and the Managing Director of the Halifax office said, “As an historically offshore bank with our principal operations in island nations, we at Butterfield understand how closely tied the well-being of the economies and the people of our communities is to the ocean. That’s certainly true of the Halifax community, as well, where we’ve recently set up our Support Services Centre.
“The fortunes of our tourism products, our fisheries, and the quality of daily life for all of us depends on the health of the waters that surround us. Being a part of the Seabin Project is one small way we can help address the problem of ocean littering. We’re pleased to partner with the RNSYS to bring the technology to Halifax as a Canadian first.”
As a Global Pilot Partner, Butterfield will also work with local environmental and youth-focused organisations to introduce the Seabin Project’s open-source education programs in locations where it deploys Seabin technology to increase awareness of the problem of ocean pollution among school children.
Pete Ceglinski, Managing Director and Co-Founder of the Seabin Project said, “We are happy to be in Halifax to install Canada’s first Seabin. Our vision is to have Seabins become standard hardware at every marina and yacht club in this country and around the world to help tackle the problem of ocean pollution. The installation at the RNSYS will help us demonstrate the technology to help us advance that cause. Having Butterfield as one of our Global Pilot Partners has allowed us to leverage their presence in multiple countries to introduce Seabin technology and educational programs to a wider audience. It’s a great partnership.
“The team at the RNSYS has been very accommodating and enthusiastic about the project, and we’re very happy to have them on board, and to have this beautiful Club be the site of our first Canadian Seabin.”
Kevin Hurd, General Manager of the RNSYS said,“We are proud to be among the first yacht clubs worldwide to install a Seabin and do our part to help highlight this new technology. As sailors, we see evidence of the growing problem of ocean pollution in our waters every day. Installing a Seabin is just one of the many things we are doing at the RNSYS to help address the problem of ocean littering.”
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Source: Media Release
